💡 Creator News: A Poop Scooping Newsletter Makes $42,000+/Month, A $400,000/Year Substack Strategy, Grammarly's Human Writing Detector
Plus 50 hours on Europe's most dangerous island.
If anyone ever comes to you and tells you that “your Substack is too niche!!!” just show them this email I got about how much money community/newsletters on the platform Skool make:
^I’d particularly like to draw your attention to poop scoop millionaire, a community that earns $42,891/month teaching people how to pick up dog poop as a business.
While Skool is a Substack competitor, I think the platform itself is irrelevant here when we’re talking about niche. There are Substack publications that are very niche that are also doing ~ numbers ~ and I’ve broken down some examples in my 6 Week Substack Sprint.
I talked a bit more about niches and what we can learn from these communities at the top of our most recent Substack strategy workshop, Substack Lab, which is open to all Founding Members of 💡 Sutoscience (consider upgrading your subscription if you’d like to join us + gain access to the 6+ hours of content of the 6 Week Substack Sprint + 1:1 Substack Audits as I’ve reopened my books for a limited time!)
Without further ado, here are more of the links, content trends, and other creative news items of interest for you to check out:
💬 Links I Sent My Fiancée
My fiancée (!!!) Kyle Cords is my co-founder which means DMing him links counts as productive work 💕
Kyle sent me this piece about how Spotify is starting to sell physical books. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: physical books are so timeless even tech companies are betting on them.
Kyle shared this chart with me that is the future of “new media” in the social age.
A Japanese developer created an app where a fat cat sits on your screen to get you to log off and touch some grass.
🌁 Dispatches From the Bay
What to do and where to eat in San Francisco.
Kyle and I were both pulled up on stage for magic tricks as part of this great SF magic show with magician Kevin Blake. You enter through a speakeasy and it’s a really lovely date night, so highly recommend if you’re in the city!
☕️ Content Trends
Trends in social media, content creation, and what’s going on here on Substack.
Grammarly now lets you prove your writing is human. The new Grammarly Authorship feature tracks your keystrokes in real time and generates a report showing what was human-typed vs. AI-generated or pasted. For freelance writers pitching to skeptical clients, or authors who want to demonstrate authenticity, this is the kind of tool that might soon become table stakes. The fact that we now need to prove our own writing is ours is... a vibe, but here we are.
YouTube expanded deepfake protection to every creator on the platform. All creators can now request removal of AI-generated content that simulates their face or voice. For authors who do content online, this matters — the threat of someone making a fake version of you promoting something is no longer theoretical. Social Pilot
Instagram Reels can now run up to 20 minutes. The line between Instagram and YouTube is officially blurry. Long-form writing vlogs, process videos, “a day in the life of a working author” — all of these have room to breathe in a way they didn’t before. If you’ve been hesitating on video because you felt like you needed a whole YouTube setup, this might be your moment to start smaller.
TikTok is now showing your new videos to your existing followers first. If your followers don’t engage, the video doesn’t travel to the For You Page. This is a quiet but massive shift — the “go viral with strangers” era is over, and the “build a community that actually cares” era is here. For writers on BookTok or anywhere: follower count is now a vanity metric. Engagement from real readers is what unlocks reach.
Two years after selling Simon & Schuster, Paramount is back in books. Paramount Skydance just launched Paramount Global Publishing, a new imprint starting in the U.S. and Canada. The pitch: expand franchises (your SpongeBob novels, your Mission: Impossible tie-ins) and develop original IP to pipeline into film and TV. On one hand — Hollywood continues to treat books primarily as IP farms. On the other hand, that means more acquisitions, more deals, and potentially more money for authors. Silver linings! Variety
💰 What to Watch & Read If You Want to Make Money Online
Resources to make you smarter and richer in the Creator Economy.
32 million new Substack subscribers came from inside the platform in a single quarter. The Substack discovery engine — Notes, Recommendations, the algorithm — is genuinely working. Which means if you're not treating Substack Notes like a micro-social platform where you post 1–2 times a day, you are leaving real subscriber growth on the table. Here's a solid YouTube breakdown of what a $400k/year Substack strategy actually looks like right now from newsletter creator Nicolas Cole:
Kyle and I have launched our CozyJobs — our jobs platform for creatives! — far and wide with a new coupon code for all subscribers to try a week of our paid plan for just $0.99! Get the code and watch the demo here:
🎥 Random Pick of the Week: 50 Hours on Europe’s Most Dangerous Island
Personally, I find that some of the best documentary work is being done on YouTube.
I’ve been loving Yes Theory, and here’s a recent video they made about the surprising history of a French island you probably don’t know about:
I really like Yes Theory’s videos because (despite the clickbait-y titles) they take time to really understand a local area and the people who inhabit them. It’s the kind of understanding I’m always chasing as a memoir ghostwriter and (in fictional projects) as an author.
🛍️ Add to Cart
Things that have made my life better or products I have my eye on.
We just bought a whole pack of disposable cameras for our wedding guests to help us capture our special day. There’s something nostalgic about this bad boys, don’t you think?
Questions? Thoughts? Would love to hear what you’re thinking, reading, or making in the comments.
Happy creating,
-Amy